NJ Hikers Ticketed for Obnoxious Behavior on Hudson Valley Trails

If you're visiting from New Jersey, please leave your obnoxious behavior on the boardwalk.

Let me start by saying that I was born and raised in New Jersey. I still have friends and family that live there and spend every summer on the Jersey shore. While I love the Garden State, I can honestly say that those of us who grew up there can be a bit obnoxious at times.

New Jersians are notorious for getting annoyed at New Yorkers who vacation at their beaches. They like to call outsiders "bennies" or "shoobies" and are constantly complaining about their bad behavior. You can find messages telling out-of-state vacationers to "go home" posted on lawn signs and scratched into bathroom walls at most shore towns.

One group of New Jersey hikers proved that they were the real bennies when they decided to visit a hiking trail in Ulster County over the weekend.

New York State Department of Environmental Conservation rangers were scratching their heads after hearing reports of an obnoxious group of New Jersey Hikers headed up to the summit of Slide Mountain in Shandaken.

A tip from the Catskill 3500 Club, a hiking group that "encourages responsible use of the region's natural resources", led to a ranger confronting the group of hikers who were seen carrying heavy wooden Adirondack chairs up to the top of the mountain. According to the DEC, the New Jersey hikers said that their plan was to leave the chairs up at the top of the mountain so that people could sit in them.

Perhaps the group confused 47,000 acres of nature preserve with the beach at Seaside Heights where bringing your own chair is encouraged. Slide Mountain reaches an elevation of 4,120 feet, so it's unclear why these New Jersey hikers thought it was a good idea to haul heavy chairs all the way up the mountain, but rangers explained that it was illegal to leave them at the summit.

After the confrontation, the hikers said that they refused to go back and get the chairs, so they were issued a ticket for "abandoning property in a wilderness area". Rangers were then forced to hike the mountain themselves and remove the chairs. It's unclear just how much of a fine the New Jersey hikers will have to pay, but we're sure it costs more than a beach badge and a pork roll sandwich.